


Dangerous

by blueeyesandpie



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Canon Compliant, Gabriel is dead - long live Gabriel, Gen, Mentions of blood and violence, One Shot, POV Castiel (Supernatural), SPN Swan Song Bingo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-26
Updated: 2019-06-26
Packaged: 2020-05-20 06:25:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19371217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueeyesandpie/pseuds/blueeyesandpie
Summary: Apocalypse Castiel smells change in the air. This is not a good thing.





	Dangerous

**Author's Note:**

> Come yell at me on [Tumblr](https://blueeyesandpie.tumblr.com) or come hang out on the [Profound Bond](http://discord.profoundbond.net) discord server!

Castiel pauses, lifting his nose to sniff curiously. _Green_ , the air proclaims. _Life_. It’s alien, a jarring difference from the dust and stench of human terror he’s grown accustomed to over the years since the Apocalypse. He feels his vessel push against the confines of his dreamscape in response, the new sensation pulling Jimmy closer to waking than he has been in nearly a decade.

Change. Change is not good. Change began when Lucifer appeared in their world with no explanation, and continued to build when the nephilim escaped to lead the human rebellion. Change means the wretched masses that insist on rebelling against Michael’s righteous rule have forgotten their insignificance. Change means more fighting, more angels lost to conflict that has no place in God’s plan...and even more lost to Michael’s displeasure when the reports are filed. 

Frustrating, all of it. 

He’s drawn out of his thoughts when the human hanging from the ceiling by a rope wrapped around her wrists screams in terror and pain. Blood leaks from her eyes like perverted tears, dribbles slowly from her nose, then gushes from her mouth in a flood. Castiel rolls his eyes and taps her forehead with his fingers, white light flashing as he burns her body to ash and her pitiful soul to nothing at all. “Never let it be said Heaven shows no mercy to sinners,” he says out loud. 

The angel follows the smell from the impromptu shelter. It grows stronger outside, carrying with it the vague memory of fluffy seeds drifting on summer wind and tulips pushing up from rich, dark earth. Castiel frowns as he squints at the western horizon, toward the source of this unwelcome phenomenon. There’s a break in the clouds there, a finger of golden light shining through to illuminate some distant field. 

He hasn’t seen the sun since before the Apocalypse and the sight sets him back harder than the scent did. Jimmy stirs again, actually fighting to wake this time. Castiel slams him deeper without thought, further and harder than he ever has, so far he feels a twinge at the distance between vessel and soul. The bones and flesh are soon flooded with grace, however, the void filled with light and power, and the discomfort is forgotten. 

_ Gabriel is here! _

The exclamation howls from angel to angel, carried between them on ineffable wavelengths; before the exclamation stops echoing in his mind, Castiel is standing in front of his garrison, silver blade a steady weight in his fist as he waits for Michael’s orders. 

The new smells make sense, now. The Gabriel he knew for millennia is dead, wings burned into the side of a mountain and his vessel hung on display as an example to any angels harboring sympathy for the humans they fight. This Gabriel is not their Gabriel, however. Like others they’ve seen recently, he must come from a world still gentle and warm, fruitful in its naivety. This Gabriel has his grace and knows how to control it, unlike the other angelic presences from that world, and isn’t exhausted by years of unending conflict.

This Gabriel is  _ dangerous _ . 

“Kill him,” the archangel says. It didn’t matter to him how many died to capture and execute his brother last time and it isn’t of import this time, either. Castiel thinks it should matter, though he dares not voice the thought aloud. Michael cannot make new angels, and their numbers dwindle with every skirmish. What good will winning do if none of them live to see paradise rebuilt?

“What of the nephilim?” Anna says from her place at the head of her own army, the slightest touch of uncertainty in her tone. She is aware of the implications as well, then. 

“Kill them all. Wipe out all life, if you must. Raze the earth to bedrock, the sea to salt and the air to ash and dust. Heaven will prevail, no matter the cost.”

At least Michael understands the importance of immediate action. Castiel keeps his satisfied smirk to himself as he turns to his subordinates. “Begin your search where the sun fell,” he snaps before Anna can speak up and claim it for herself. “Now!” He waits until they disappear, then spreads his wings himself.

There’s work to be done in what the humans still call Kansas.


End file.
